


it's the rising

by peterparkr



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm finally writing something that isn't endgame angst!!!, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Torture, that should give you some idea where this is going, this is titled in my google docs as space jail so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2020-10-18 05:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterparkr/pseuds/peterparkr
Summary: If Tony was alone, he'd probably give up.But, he's not.ORTony and Peter get captured during a fight and end up light-years away in a situation that there's no coming back from.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited for this! I have big plans for a lot of struggles and angst but don't worry it'll end happy!! I hope that you will enjoy :)
> 
> Also the whole civil war was resolved somehow!

Tony stares at the flashing light on his HUD, mind completely blank for a few seconds until he sees the faint outline of a spider symbol and remembers what this particular alert is for. It’s the panic button—Peter’s panic button. Peter pressed the panic button.

The words don’t make sense to his brain. Peter barely calls Tony for help. He would never press a panic button.

Of course, Tony didn’t call it a panic button when he’d explained it to Peter (and it’s not really a button, more of a command), but that’s how he thinks of it. It sends out a beacon to any Avenger within a 100 mile radius of Peter’s location, signalling that back-up is needed. If nobody within that range responds, it tries a 200 mile radius, and the search area just gets bigger until someone shows up.

Peter pressing the button means one of two things. Either he’s grown up a bit in the last year, gotten mature enough that he realizes when it’s an Avengers problem rather than a solo job, or the kid’s in deep shit. Tony prays for the former, but the latter seems much more likely. Just last week he’d realized that Peter had disabled some of the suit’s safety protocols,  _ again.  _ There’s no way he’s calling for help unless he’s in real trouble.

Natasha cringes and brings a hand up to her ear. “Is that the Spider-Man alert? Christ, you made it loud.”

Obviously, he made it loud. It means that Peter’s in trouble. He ignores her knowing smirk (the grief he gets for acting like a mother hen about Peter is getting old) and checks the location of Peter’s signal. It’s near Queens—not surprising.

“Almost wrapped it up over there, Rogers?” He’s a little stunned at how hollow his voice sounds and how it wavers, just slightly, but still noticeable. He hopes it’s masked over the comms. “We’ve got to go.”

“All the dealers are detained, law enforcement should be here in five.”

It’ll take them thirty minutes to get back to New York in the quinjet. FRIDAY tells Tony that he can make it in the suit in twenty-one. He cocks his head to the side. If he really pushes it, he can shave that down to eighteen.

“I’m out, get there as soon as you can,” he says as he fires the repulsors.

No one tries to stop him. Even Steve just tells him to be careful. 

“Any extra juice, Fri?” 

She kicks the repulsors into their highest gear.

He had thought that being on the move would calm the icy panic zipping through his veins, but the flying isn’t cutting it. It’s not enough of a distraction. He orders FRIDAY to try to make contact with Peter.

“Mr. Stark!” The relief in Peter’s voice matches the same feeling that causes Tony’s muscles to sag slightly. “Are you here?”

“Not yet. Fifteen minutes. Alright?”

“Y-yeah. There’s just—too many for me to take out. Is the whole team coming? We might need the whole team. Yeah, we definitely need the whole team.”

Tony tells FRIDAY to go faster. A command which she ignores because they both know that the suit is already using maximum power.

“Too many what? Take cover until you have back-up.”

“Can’t exactly—do that,” Peter mutters. 

Tony takes a deep breath. He would be pinching the bridge of his nose if he wasn’t soaring towards Manhattan. “Why is that?”

“Like I said, there are—a lot of them.” For the first time, Tony registers that Peter sounds out of breath. It’s not easy to get him there with his enhanced lung-capacity. “I’m distracting most of them, for now, but they’re—fast. And have big weapons.”

Tony’s chest pangs and he swipes away FRIDAY’s warning of his elevated heartbeat. If this job wasn’t going to kill him before Peter took up a permanent position in his life, it certainly will now.

“What are they, kid?”

There’s a long hesitation and Tony can hear air whistling. He talks himself down from the images of Peter falling and assures himself that it’s just from swinging.

“Sorry.” Peter’s audible gasps for air are getting louder. “Aliens—it’s an invasion. Like, it reminds me of the pictures from the Battle of New York. Except—they look different. But, the same concept.”

Tony lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment before forcing them to reopen and steeling himself for the scene that is awaiting him in the city. It’ll be a battle then, a serious one.

“I’m ten minutes away, the rest of the team is a little behind me.”

He sends a message to them so that they realize what kind of fight they need to prepare for. The situation looks bad. Tony can see the city skyline now, and more importantly the dark shapes, that must be ships (he hopes that they’re ships and not giant creatures) looming above it. Tony blinks because he swears a portal is coming into focus. It’s too similar to last time. He pushes the fear away, focuses on getting to Peter as fast as he can. 

“Take me to him, Fri.”

“Yes, boss.”

When he finally sees Peter, any relief he found from their phone call fades away. Peter wasn’t 

exaggerating about using himself as a distraction, in fact that was a severe understatement. A whole hoard of triple-horned, flying aliens follow his every movement, banking left and right just as fast as Peter is. The sound that they make is jarring—a high-pitched buzz with deeper clicks. Tony can’t tell if it’s from their movement or if it’s a form of communication. They don’t have wings, they seem to be able to levitate in some other way, and it makes their directional changes more swift than if they had to physically change directions. Peter’s attempts to dive or lose them on sharp turns into narrow alleyways are futile.

Tony pulls up beside Peter, shooting repulsors at the closest ones. “What on earth did you do to get them all to follow you?”

“Web fluid over—one of their ship’s cannons. Managed to—blow up the whole thing when they—tried to fire it. Then yelled at them a bit—to get their attention.”

He’s exhausted. Not only is he struggling to talk without pausing for air, but his motions are becoming sloppy—probably not to the average bystander’s eye, but Tony can tell. Knowing Peter, he didn’t use the panic button until after the chase started, so he’s probably been at this for almost a half-hour by now. That’s a long time to keep up the pace that he’s going at.

Tony has to do something about it.

“You said that damaging their ships pisses them off?” Tony doesn’t wait for Peter’s response before changing course and shooting straight up. It’s a familiar motion and he can feel the phantom weight of the nuke on his back, but he’s not going that high, not his time. He hopes never again.

Once Tony’s close enough, he starts firing rapidly at the ship. Sure enough, he hears the buzz-click noises that the aliens make. He glances over his shoulder and sees the swarm approaching him at an alarming rate. He just hopes that all of the creatures have followed him and left Peter alone.

But, of course, the kid doesn’t know how to let himself be saved. Tony can’t get mad about it without being severely hypocritical. He’s the same way, so is every hero that he’s ever met. They’re a load of self-sacrificing idiots with a giant laundry list of issues that made them that way. All he can do is sigh as he sees the familiar red and blue suit scuttling up a nearby building towards him. 

“Mr. Stark! Look out!”

“Yup, I see ‘em kid. You should have stayed back.” There’s no real conviction behind it.

“Well, I couldn’t do that, you see, because I knew that they would follow you and there are so many of them and they’re pretty tough and fast and I want to help and woah, what is that?”

Tony doesn’t look away from the ship that he’s trying to obliterate with his repulsors. “What is what?”

“They’re doing something.”

Tony stifles a groan. The kid has two settings. It’s either long, rambly sentences that flow out of his mouth so fast that Tony misses all of the important bits while trying to figure out how he got from gym class to web fluid density or it’s vague fragments of ideas that convey absolutely no meaning whatsoever. Tony should explain the importance of clear and concise speech, but now isn’t the time for a leadership lesson.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Um—purple smoke?”

Two words to get the point across. Clear, concise, not bad. Maybe Peter doesn’t need that lesson afterall. Tony glances over his shoulder to see that there is indeed purple smoke billowing out from the alien’s skin. Maybe it isn’t skin at all, more of a protective barrier, an armor, or a suit, that houses whatever this chemical is.

“Uh oh,” Peter says.

Tony glances away from the ship, just in time to see Peter’s grip on the building go limp. His body starts to plummet towards the ground. Before Tony can rouse himself into motion to  _ catch him _ . One of the aliens breaks ranks from the swarm and phases down to Peter, scooping him into his arms.

“Put him down,” Tony yells, even though he doesn’t think that the aliens can understand English. 

He ploughs through the smoke to get to Peter, but the alien carrying him is fast, zipping this way and that, trying to evade him. The quick motions are making Tony dizzy. He shakes his head to get rid of the fuzzy, floaty feeling, but all it does is cause pinpricks of black to fill his vision. 

_ Uh oh, _ he thinks. Just as Peter had said less than a minute before. It must be the smoke, but that shouldn’t be possible. His suit is airtight, so is Peter’s. They both receive filtered air. Unless whatever alien chemical is in this purple smoke is too fine, or unrecognizable to the filters somehow. Tony holds his breath and tries to fly out of the smoke, but it’s too late. The world fades away.

* * *

Tony comes to with a pounding head and nausea swirling his stomach. He groans slightly as he tries to shift, but finds that he’s held in place. He tries to bring up a hand to rub at his aching temples but he can’t do that either. 

“Oh, thank god.” Peter’s voice brings the events that lead Tony to the current situation back. “Mr. Stark, can you hear me?”

Tony opens his eyes, just to a squint, but the light is still too much. It’s like a goddamn hangover on steroids. He grunts and hopes that answers Peter’s question.

“Okay, I’m going to assume that means yes.” 

Tony can tell that Peter’s whispering, but it’s still far too loud in his current state. Every word is answered by another pang that seems intent on splitting his skull in half. He tries to convey that by wincing.

“Yeah, sorry, I felt terrible when I woke up. I got over it pretty fast though so you should too! Unless that was because I’m—uh—me. That might be why actually, fast metabolism, sorry.”

Now, Tony’s just guilty that Peter woke up in pain and alone while simultaneously pissed that the kid’s body works so fast for him. 

“Where?” It’s barely audible, but Peter understands it anyway.

“It looks like a hotel room. Weird, right?” Peter laughs. “Think they just strolled up to the Ritz with Spider-Man and Iron Man slung over their shoulders and asked for a room?”

“Ritz is too classy,” Tony mutters. “They must have found a Holiday Inn or some shit.”

“Hey! Holiday Inn’s are nice.”

Tony would argue if he wasn’t about to be sick. He makes a mental note to make sure that the kid gets put up in nicer places if he ever goes on vacation before rolling to the side and gagging. Thankfully, nothing comes up but some spit. He wouldn't be fond of laying right next to a pile of his own vomit.

“Are you okay?” Peter’s voice is softer now, laced with concern—which isn’t right, that’s Tony’s job.

He nods, but that turns out to be another mistake, so he lets his head sink back as he rides out the spikes of pain.

“I have a tentative plan,” Peter says. “Do you think you can move? That’s kind of an integral part of it.”

Tony sighs and throws a thumbs up. 

“You realize that your hands are tied behind your back, right?”

Tony hadn’t, actually, but that makes sense. “You still could see the thumb, couldn’t you?”

“Um—yeah.”

“Then why are you questioning me?”

“Right, sorry.”

Peter sounds nervous. Tony’s got to get a grip. Even if he feels like he’d prefer if the aliens had killed him rather than let him suffer like this, he needs to put on some sort of front. That’s what he’s good at. Time to stop wallowing in the pain.

“Hit me with your plan, kid.”

There’s a long silence, and Tony’s about to open his eyes, he really is, if only to see what Peter’s doing. He hears a snap and the sound finally rouses him to deal with the light in the room. He realizes that it’s actually pretty dim, the shades are drawn and the lights are off. It’s a small blessing. 

Peter’s torn the cuffs that had bound his hands in two, so that he just has a shackle around each wrist with the chain dangling from one. Tony grins. The aliens are so stupid, putting Peter of all people in simple metal hand cuffs. He makes quick work of Tony’s as well and then hauls him to his feet.

“So, now we run.” Peter looks at Tony, sheepishly. “That’s it, that’s the plan.”

Well, he is a little young to be a master strategist. “Simple, direct, hopefully effective. Let’s get out of here.” 

Peter keeps his grip on Tony for a little longer than he needs to, to make sure that he’s steady on his feet. Tony would gripe about it if he didn’t need the extra support as the room spins and wavers around him. Usually he has stabilizers that help with this sort of thing.

“They took our suits,” he realizes aloud. 

It should have been one of the first things he noticed after he came to. Whatever was in that smoke is making him slow on the uptake.

“Yeah, so stay behind me.”

Peter moves toward the door and jerks the handle sharply to the side to break the lock. Tony gapes at the back of his head.

“You did not just say that to me.”

“Mr. Stark, I’m strong and you—“

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

Peter glances back at him. He looks slightly apologetic, but mostly just determined. Tony can give him this one. If he runs through scenarios in his head, there are countless strategic advantages to letting Peter lead their escape. He is stronger, and faster. But, more importantly, Tony’s not as defenseless as Peter believes he is. He feels the groove in his chest for confirmation. He’d implanted another microchip—Pepper had sighed when she’d inevitably felt it, he was stupid to think that she wouldn’t, and called him paranoid. He can admit to that, and he’s not proud of the fact. He would work harder to break old habits if they didn’t keep coming in handy during times like this. The microchip will call the nanotech housing compartment from wherever the aliens took it and bring it to him if they need it. It’s best to keep that bit of information secret until it’s time to use it. The element of surprise can only help them against these guys.

“Ready?”

Tony nods and Peter shoves the door open and steps out. He follows, only to run straight into Peter’s back.

“This isn’t a hotel,” Peter whispers.

Indeed it isn’t. There’s no tacky decorative carpet or uncontroversial subpar paintings of hillsides or potted plants. The hallway is gray, the walls, floors and ceiling monochrome—all some sort of metal. It’s dimly lit, much like the room and could stretch for miles for all that Tony can tell. He can’t see an ending in either direction.

“Didn’t think they’d actually put us up in that Holiday Inn, did you?”

Peter gulps. “Guess not.”

“Maybe we’re underground,” Tony says.

It does sort of look like a tunnel. But, Tony’s perception may also be shaded by past experiences in the captivity department.

“Why would aliens take us underground? It’s not like they’re going to have a secret bunker on Earth.”

The question is very valid, but Tony doesn’t want to voice the more realistic scenario—that they’ve left Earth entirely. He’ll worry about that when all the information about their predicament is present.

The hallway is still—eerily so, and the dreary lack of color adds to the affect. Tony tries to walk softly, but his footsteps still echo off the walls. They both wince every time their feet hit the ground. 

“Just keep going,” Tony says when Peter looks back at him for what feels like the thousandth time. “There’s got to be an exit somewhere.”

There doesn’t have to be, but Tony can pretend. There  _ will  _ be something eventually. It could be a different room or a glimpse of some of the aliens, but something has to happen. They have no other choice but to keep walking until it does. 

As if on cue, as soon as Tony thinks it, a low noise, a pitch that Tony probably won’t be able to hear in a few years time with the amount of explosions that he’s stood in close proximity to. At first, Tony thinks it is just his ears. He frowns and shakes his head, swallows a few times. Then he realizes that Peter’s grimacing, he looks on the verge of pained. It must be worse for him with his magnified senses.

“Can you tell where it’s coming from?”

“You can hear it too? I thought it was just me. It feels like it’s coming from everywhere.”

The volume raises and Peter clamps his hands over his ears. If the goal is to take out their strongest fighter, the sound is well on it’s way to accomplishing that. Tony’s afraid it may have a different purpose. It’s confirmed a moment later as the outlines of the strange aliens appear out of the darkness in front of them.

“Shit, it’s an alarm,” Tony says.

“Okay, you found us! Please turn it off!” Peter yells at the approaching figures, refusing to take his hands away from his ears.

Apparently, the alarm is going to serve two purposes. Tony’s seconds away from calling the nanotech compartment when Peter snaps out of it and sprints at the swarm. Tony can’t help but smile a little, despite the fact that their situation is dire. The kid’s tough. Tony’s proud—or whatever.

It’s over before Tony can even catch up. There were only three of them, and Peter managed to take them out easily enough, each limp in a pile on the floor. Tony knows enough about Peter to assume that they’re merely unconscious rather than dead. Peter bounds back to him with only a gash on his arm, from where one of the horns must have caught him.

“They’ve got to stop this noise, Mr. Stark,” Peter complains, not even mentioning the fight, as he replaces his grip on his ears.

Tony snorts and they unceremoniously make their way over the aliens to continue their journey. They only get a few steps before the alarm ramps up a few more notches. Peter doubles over with a sharp hiss. He stubbornly rights himself, grits his teeth, and keeps walking forward without looking at Tony. It’s starting to get loud enough to give Tony a throbbing headache—he can’t imagine what Peter must feel. Tony’s got to get him out of here.

The sharpening of the alarm sound must coincide with the level of the threat because a larger group of aliens materializes ahead of them. The buzz-clicks are back in full force, mingling with the whine of the alarm in a grotesque cacophony. There’s not as many as there had been chasing Peter around New York, but there are too many for him to handle alone. 

Peter launches himself toward them anyway because that’s how he is. Tony winces as he makes impact with the first one. It would be a more even match if he had his webs, his suit, any kind of weapon, but it’s just Peter and his bare, albeit strong, hands.

Tony feels the groove under the skin of his chest once more. He takes a deep breath, watches an alien slam Peter into the wall, and then summons the nanotech compartment.

He feels like Thor. The thought makes him almost giddy, although some of that might be the adrenaline. Screw the warped sense of worthiness of the hammer (there’s got to be some trick, Tony just isn’t buying it), Tony Stark makes his own weapon that flies to its owner. His brain is fucking worthy.

And then his self-righteous attitude fades away because it’s taking a while for the compartment to get him and there’s a large chance that they’re not on Earth right now and the aliens might have ditched it back there.

If it doesn’t get to him soon they might not make it out of this mess. Peter’s quickly losing ground, he’s getting hit more, and harder, than he’s able to hit them. At this rate, he won’t be walking back to Tony with just a small cut and a quip about the noise-level. Tony needs to buy as much time as possible until the compartment (hopefully) makes its way to him. 

“Hey,” he shouts. “Have you forgotten about me?”

It gets a few of their beady eyes to flick to him, so he waves his arms for emphasis before taking off back towards the room that he woke up in. He throws a few more taunts over his shoulder and makes sure that he’s being followed. It’s a more high-stakes version of what he’d done in New York—this time with no armor and no weapons. He scans the air around him for a certain flying chunk of metal and prays that will change soon.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter’s running now, too, thankfully not being held captive by the aliens. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Uh, all you said is run. You didn’t specify where to or what from. I would never dream of defying the plans of the great Peter Parker.”

The aliens are close behind them, and gaining. Peter’s definitely jogging to stay at Tony’s pace.

“Just go,” Tony pants. “Full speed, get out of here.”

_ If you can,  _ he thinks.  _ If we’re not already light-years away from home. _

“What? No!”

“I’m serious, Peter. This is one of the times where you need to listen to me.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“No, you’re going to get out of here and get back-up. Okay?”

Odds are that Tony will be dead, or somewhere that the team will never be able to find him before Peter can get the group together. But he’s willing to say anything to get Peter out of here.

Peter can see right through it. He looks at Tony with understanding that he shouldn’t have yet. He didn’t have it when Tony met him. He’s too young to understand death and sacrifice and what it  _ really  _ means to do this job, rather than the triumphs and romanticization of it that they show on TV. It feels like another thing that Tony broke.

And then Tony’s knocked backwards as something slams into his chest. His back hits the ground hard and he gasps for air and tries to struggle to his feet but neither is successful. He flounders for a few seconds before he looks down and sees the nanotech compartment attached to his chest and it’s like the hope that it gives him opens up his lungs again.

“Gotcha.” He grins and rolls to face the aliens, springs to his feet with renewed energy. 

The nanites seep over his body. As soon as the repulsors are in place, he arcs his hand across the width of the hallway, firing until all of the buzz-clicks die out and alien bodies line the floor. 

“That was awesome,” Peter breathes.

“Let’s go.” Tony pushes Peter in front of him and starts him running with a shove. They can move faster now, with Tony hovering and Peter going full-speed. They pass their room again, going in the opposite direction as last time. 

“Fingers crossed,” Peter says. “That we just chose really badly last time and the exit’s, like, in ten yards or something.”

Fat chance. Nothing but black nothingness stretches ahead of them. There’s not going to be any flashing exit sign, and Tony doesn’t have access to FRIDAY for navigation help, even with the suit. They’re somewhere off the grid—which could be due to a lot of things. Tony reasons that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they left the planet. He can’t panic, yet. It’s a mantra in his head.  _ Don’t panic, not yet.  _ They city could be 50 feet above them. He can’t quite believe that, and the farther they get down the hallway without any change in scenery, the more sure he is that they’re somewhere he really,  _ really _ doesn’t want to be. He’s never been good with optimism.

Peter stops so abruptly that Tony doesn’t even notice at first. “Mr. Stark, wait. It splits.”

Sure enough, there’s a smaller corridor that veers off diagonally from the main stretch they’ve been traveling through. Peter takes a step toward it and then looks back at Tony for confirmation. He shrugs. It’s the first thing they’ve passed that has broken the monotony, might as well try it. 

Peter’s barely entered the hallway when he gasps. Tony rushes to his side to see what caused the reaction. It doesn’t elicit the same one from him, just a numb sensation crawling through his body. It’s nothing he didn’t expect after all, but it still, frankly, sucks to be right in the worst possible way all the damn time. 

The expansive blankness of space stares back at them, even more oppressive than the vast stretches of hallway they’d been running through, from a small circular window. Tony dips his head in defeat, but quickly rights it so that Peter won’t see.

“Well, fuck,” Peter whispers.

That’s the best way to put it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left kudos and commented on the last chapter! It means so so much! I will try not to disappoint lol.

They should keep moving, find somewhere to hide and regroup. They should plan. The aliens will find them if they stay in one place too long.

Tony knows all of these things. He also knows that the odds of any of them preventing his and Peter’s inevitable capture and subsequent demise—in fucking outer space of all places—are slim. So, he lets the nanites slink back into the compartment and sinks to the floor instead.

His hands shake slightly without the suit to stabilize them. He weaves them through his hair and tugs, tries to focus on the tension it causes in his scalp rather than the tightness in his chest or the uneven, rapid beats of his heart.

“Um, Mr. Stark?”

“Yup. Give me a second. Still feeling the effects of that smoke,” Tony lies.

“Sorry, I forgot.”

Peter’s voice sounds so earnest. Tony shouldn’t lie to him, take advantage of the trust there, but it’s got to be better than the alternative. It’s no fun to find out that the adult is losing it—especially when that adult is supposed to be a seasoned superhero.

The alarm cuts off in an instant. The shift to silence is more jarring than the gradual increase in the volume had been.

Peter grins—actually  _ grins, _ in a time like this. His optimism is ceaseless.

“Thank god,” he says. “I was about thirty seconds from bashing my own skull in.”

And yet, he wasn’t showing it. Tony’s the one practically curled in a ball on the ground. He needs to do better.

“Maybe it means that they’ve given up on looking for us?” Peter’s eyes are searching and hopeful.

Tony bites back numerous responses. First, that’s certainly not the case. Second, even if it was, it wouldn’t do them any good. They’re in space, no idea how far from home, or how to get back, or where this ship will take them. In fucking  _ space _ , with only a thin layer of metal between them and a never-ending vacuum. He takes a few sharp gasps and pulls tighter on his hair.

“Never mind.” Peter grimaces. “Something’s coming.”

And then the hallway comes alive—buzz-clicks echoing from both directions. The aliens zip fast towards them, oscillating from side to side in chaotic patterns but never bumping into each other. Tony adds telepathic links, some sort of hive-mind scenario, to their probable skillset.

There’s nothing like imminent doom to pull a person out of an anxiety attack. Tony thanks god or survival instincts or whatever it is that created the little loophole in his brain that distinguishes  _ Danger! Time to freak!  _ from  _ DANGER! TIME TO FIGHT!  _ He dons the suit, and fires as fast as he can. He makes a laser that takes out a good lot of them, but infinite more seem to flood the hallway. It’s like Hydra. Cut off one head and two more emerge in its place. 

They’re screwed.

Soon enough, the aliens have both Peter and Tony pinned. Peter struggles against them, managing to sock a few in the face. Every time, they hit him back harder.

“Hey, Pete, save it.”

They’re not getting out of this here, it’s more important to comply now and save the strength and energy for later, when they have a plan. Peter immediately listens, going limp in his captor’s arms.

Tony hopes it’s the right call.

He follows his own advice, summoning the nanites back into the compartment and holding up his hands in surrender. 

One of the aliens holding him down snatches the compartment from his chest and eyes it curiously. A series of buzz-clicks ensue and then the alien tosses it to another one who glides away with it. The first alien tears open the fabric of Tony’s shirt and then slides the rough pad of his fingertip over the skin on Tony’s chest. He tries to squirm away, but the grip on his shoulders is too strong. The fingertip finds the groove, just as Pepper had, and the alien narrows his eyes. He squawks at the other aliens holding Tony and they lower him flat onto the ground. Tony can feel his eyes bulging out of his skull.

“What are you doing?” Peter yells.

The alien extends a single claw on what must be his version of an index finger and lowers it towards Tony’s chest. 

“No,” Tony gasps.

The alien taps the claw on the groove of the microchip before sliding it half an inch to the right, only leaving a slight scratch that doesn’t break the skin. Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Worse is to come.

The claw pushes in and Tony hisses in pain. The alien starts to drag his hand in a circular motion around the microchip. It’s slow, menacing. The purpose isn’t just to disarm him. It’s torture. 

He feels blood dripping down his side. He hears Peter screaming. He’s probably screaming, too. He’s in and out of consciousness—the out should be blissful, but it’s almost worse. He’s in Afghanistan again, it’s shrapnel and open-heart surgery and no anesthetics and then he’s awake and it’s white-hot and sharp and Peter crying.

“Please, please, stop! You could knock him out, at least, please! You did it before!”

They’re not going to stop. Tony can’t tell how far around the microchip the claw has moved. His whole chest is on fire.

He doesn’t realize when it’s ended or that he’s been moved until Peter’s face fills up the space above his head.

“Oh my god, Mr. Stark.” He’s pale and shell-shocked, eyes rimmed in red. “Oh my god. Are you okay? Oh my god.”

Relatively speaking. It’s not the worst injury Tony’s sustained. 

“It’s not that deep. The microchip was close to the skin.” He doesn’t look down to confirm that—he doesn’t think he can lift his head that far at the moment and he doesn’t particularly want to see what kind of damage has been done.

“It looks deep. It looks really bad— _ really bad _ .”

“Well, it’s not.” It’s also not great, but it’s manageable. They’re alive, most importantly, Peter’s alive. And unharmed, at least he thinks so. “Did they do anything to you?”

“Nothing like  _ that _ .” Peter’s eyes are glued to the jagged circle carved out of Tony’s chest. “What can I do? I’m supposed to put pressure on it, right? That will stop it from bleeding?”

“Tear up some of the sheets, okay?”

Peter nods and starts shredding the fabric into smaller pieces. Tony twists— _ ouch _ —to prop himself up on the wall beside the bed. The wound should be elevated. He’s not a first aid expert, but he’s learned enough over the years to get through this.

He accepts the tattered sheets from Peter and presses a wad of them against his chest. Peter fidgets as he watches, hands dancing around anxiously. It might be better to give him something to do.

“Do you mind holding this for me?”

Peter leaps forward to replace Tony’s hands with his own. He looks more at ease with a purpose, enough so that the silent fidgeting turns into babbling. It’s better—more Peter.

“May expects me home for dinner. And I’m not going to be there so she’s going to freak out. Then she’s going to call you and you’re not going to answer and she’s going to freak even more. I’m talking more mad than when she found out I was—” Peter looks around the room with suspicion before lowering his voice. “Spider-Man.”

Tony laughs. “I don’t think you need to be worried about your identity out here, kid.”

Peter shrugs and for a moment Tony’s chest feels more warmth than pain. Peter’s something else. Tony never thought he’d be good with kids, or a teenager, but here he is, fond of Peter in that unspoken fatherly sort of way. It probably shouldn’t be unspoken. He should be better than Howard.

And suddenly, Tony has to close his eyes because he’s on the verge of tears. Peter’s too young to be here and he’s Tony’s responsibility. He shouldn’t have let this happen. There had been dozens of warning signs telling him to get Peter out of the game before it was too late to do so.

“Am I pressing too hard?”

Tony shakes his head. He struggles to find his way back to what they had been talking about, but gets there eventually. “Don’t worry about your aunt. I’ll talk to her, take the blame. She’ll just be happy to see you.”

_ If we ever get back, _ his brain helpfully supplies.

“I hope so,” Peter whispers. 

Tony thinks that their minds might be in similar places, which just won’t do. Tony’s used to his own negativity, but not Peter’s. 

“Okay, we need to lay down some rules.”

Rules and plans are good. They calm people down in a crisis. They help the team avoid unnecessary mistakes. That’s what Cap always says. Tony’s not sure if anything would be able to calm him down, but it might help Peter. And he’d like to avoid any errors that could result in their deaths. There’s going to be enough ways for them to die up here without adding their own faults into the equation.

Peter’s head bobs up and down. He waits, intent, for Tony to continue.

“Okay, number one—we stick together. That’s our top priority unless I say otherwise. We can’t let them separate us.”

Peter’s nod is more firm this time. 

“Number two—we’re equal here, Pete. If you see something that I might not, say something. If you think there’s a better way, voice it. But, if I make a hard call, you have to listen. Promise me that.”

The most foreseeable hard call involves Peter leaving Tony behind. Which isn’t really a ‘hard’ call for Tony at all, but Peter won’t see it that way. 

Peter hesitates. He looks like he thinks it’s a trap, but agrees after a few seconds of thought.

“Number three—no secrets. If you’re hurt, or sick, or cold, or scared, anything, you need to tell me. None of your  _ I’m fine, Mr. Stark! _ and then collapsing two minutes later. I don’t have the resources to deal with that up here.”

“Fine,” Peter says. “But that works both ways. We’re equal, remember?”

It’s Tony’s turn to hesitate, but he nods as well. He hopes that he can keep it, and if not, it’s a white lie. He’d only break the promise for Peter’s sake.

“Good, starting now. Are you really okay, Mr. Stark?”

“Number four—we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. You’re calling me ‘Tony’. Screw your politeness or whatever it is that’s been making you stick with ‘Mr. Stark’ for the last year.”

“Mr. St—Tony, answer the question.”

“Wow, that worked? I would have made a rule a long time ago!”

Peter glares at him.

“Fine, yes, I’m good. It’s just painful. Nothing I’m going to die from.”

Tony feels the grip on the scraps of fabric ease. He didn’t realize how tight Peter had been holding them. 

“Okay, good.”

“I will add more rules as I see fit.”

Peter laughs and the smile on his face is a relief after all the fear and serious expressions Tony has been looking at for the last half-hour.

“Where’d they take us, anyway?”

“Same room.”

It doesn’t look the same. Gone are the hotel-like characteristics that had been there when Tony had woken up in it. There’s no window with the blinds pulled down, only gray walls. The carpet has been replaced by metal floor. The bed is a shoddy cot—they’re lucky it has sheets. The aliens must have some sort of cloaking device that could deceive their senses into seeing something familiar.

Their hands aren’t bound this time. The door looks heavier than it had before, but it’s still the same one, really. All that’s different is how his eyes are perceiving it. Peter can still take it down.

“What’s keeping us here?”

Peter stares at him in disbelief. “Um—the hole in your chest? The aliens that are probably right outside the door? Outer space?”

There’s not a hole in his chest. Tony knows a lot about having a hole in his chest and this is not that. The other two are the real, anxiety-inducing problems. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore them, and the pain, and focus on a plan.

* * *

Tony only has a half-baked rocky start to a terrible idea for how they’re going to get home when the ship starts to shudder and shake. At first, he doesn’t even bat an eye, but it doesn’t let up. Peter grips the edges of the cot and turns to Tony. All Tony can do is swallow down his nerves and hope for the best. It might be better to go out this way, with the whole ship breaking down (if that’s what this is) rather than whatever the aliens have planned for them. They proved that they aren’t above torture. And they won’t keep that sadistic lens centered on Tony forever.

But then Tony feels the ship touch down. It’s not exactly like a plane landing, or like landing in the suit, but it’s similar enough that he can recognize what it is. With Tony’s track record for this sort of thing, there’s no way that they’re back on Earth. They’re somewhere new entirely, likely the aliens’ home planet. Who knows where that is in the universe. The countless unknowns fill him with terror. 

“Did we just land?” Peter’s voice is a few octaves higher than normal.

The door to their room slams open, letting four aliens in. Two of them train giant blasters at each of them, while the other two haul them to their feet, screeching and buzzing and clicking. Tony can guess that it’s meant to be a string of threats.

“Hate to break it to you, but we can’t understand you,” Tony drawls.

“Yeah,” Peter adds. “Idiots!”

Peter winces after he says it, realizing that it wasn’t his best quip. Tony snorts. Peter’s usually better at the talk, but he can get a pass under these circumstances.

The alien holding Tony jabs a finger into the sheets that Peter had tied around his chest as a makeshift bandage and he bites his tongue to hold back a yelp. The message is clear—they don’t want them to talk.

“Remember the rules, Pete,” he says quickly. The alien pokes the wound again, this time harder. Blood starts to soak through the bandage.

They’re marched down the hallway, farther than they managed to get in their failed escape attempt. They reach a dead-end, but then the wall in front of them opens into a ramp. An alien pushes Tony towards it and he nearly trips head-first down the thing. Peter follows behind him, getting close enough that he can whisper into Tony’s ear.

“There’s only four of them, I can take them.”

Tony shakes his head vehemently, eyeing the blasters. Peter frowns, but listens. He follows the alien’s gestures to move forward without trying anything rash.

They don’t get a glimpse of the outdoors, or anything that they could use to identify the planet, or moon or whatever they landed on. Not that it matters anyway, Tony wouldn’t recognize it if they had.

Instead, they’re shoved from dark tunnel to stuffy stairwell, to a darker tunnel. Tony’s heart beats fast from the combination of fear and exertion. Each pound causes his chest-wound to ache. He’s thankful that Peter’s in front of him now, so Tony can keep an eye on him without having to twist around and break whatever scab might be starting to form.

Peter has no such inhibitions. He looks over his shoulder every few seconds, mouthing questions. Some— _ where are they taking us? _ —Tony understands, but can only respond to with a shrug. Others, he can’t even begin to guess what syllables Peter’s mouth might be forming in the dim light.

Peter sees it before Tony does. He stops in his tracks, turning his whole body around instead of just his head. The alien pushes one of his horns towards Peter, who leaps out of the way, shooting Tony a pointed look before moving forward. It seems like Peter’s walking slower, resisting, digging his heels in. Tony still can’t see why.

Then, they get close enough that he can. There’s a giant gate that stretches from the floor to the ceiling of whatever tunnel of doom they’re currently in. It must be 1000 feet tall, if not more. Behind the gate there are eyes—pairs and singles, different shapes and sizes, some of them luminescent and unnatural colors. It’s a thing of nightmares.

“God,” Tony breathes and he’s not the religious-type, but he could be convinced into believing in some sort of deity if something were to stop that gate from opening.

The alien holding Peter shoves him back towards Tony, who stops him from falling to the ground and lays a protective arm over his chest, as if it would somehow be able to stop one of the creatures inside the gate from getting to him. The alien seems to find the gesture, humorous, shoulders shaking a bit, before walking over to a keypad on the side wall. He hits a few keys in a sequence and Tony memorizes the placement—top center, center center, bottom right, center left, bottom left twice, top right—before realizing that the effort is useless. They’re likely going to be inside the gate with no access to this keypad  _ and _ the device seems to scan the alien’s retina afterwards.

Another alien alarm starts, the same low pitch as on the ship, and Peter winces against Tony. The gate creaks, long and ominous before starting to slide slowly open. Tony tightens his grip on the front of Peter’s shirt.

Then, he realizes that the sound isn’t just the gate creaking. it’s also the amalgamation of all of the eyes behind it—the creatures shrieking and barking and screaming in their native tongues. Dread spikes through Tony, and they could run, chance their luck against the two blasters, but it’s no use. The aliens will find them wherever they go in the maze of tunnels that lead them here. 

“Tony,” Peter whispers, helplessly.

He shouldn’t be here. That’s what Tony wishes most of all—that Peter was anywhere else in the entire galaxy besides here, staring at an abyss only punctuated by gleaming eyes.

There’s nothing he can do to change it now. It’s too late.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't get this up on Friday! The next one might also be late because I have midterms this week bleh. Enjoy!

Tony closes his eyes. It might be a coward’s move, but he doesn’t want to watch the mass of bodies converge on him and Peter—the howling is bad enough. He hopes that Peter’s are closed too.

But the impact never comes—nothing knocks him to the ground and no claws lance through him; the sounds don’t get any closer. Tony lifts his eyelids. The gate is fully open, creating a gap that the creatures could fit through, but none of them escape their confinement. They stare longingly at the space, and some hover closer, but their only rebellion is the shrieking. 

The aliens—their captors—push and prod until Tony takes one hesitant step forward and then another, pulling Peter along with him. 

Tony hears someone adamantly protesting. He’s watching Peter, so he knows it’s not him, but it’s definitely English. He whips his head around, trying to find where the voice is coming from, only to realize that it’s his own. He’s spitting out words with anger, with seemingly no consent from his brain. That sort of thing used to happen more often when he was younger. He remembers the words of one of his professors, after he’d made a crude joke in the middle of a lecture.  _ Anthony Stark, _ he’d said,  _ Quick mind, quicker mouth _ . Tony had mostly curbed the thing, through years of media training and the watchful eye of the public. He chooses his words carefully, even the sharp ones that people assume are slips of the tongue serve a purpose.

Something about being pushed into the gates of hell erases all of that.

“Absolutely fucking not. We are not going in there. Hey, hands off of him. Get away from us.”

The aliens’ shoulders start to shake, and they make the same tittering sounds from earlier that Tony guesses are laughter. He’s starting to get the sense that they can understand what he’s saying.

Tony’s body, at least, doesn’t stage the same revolt against his brain’s common sense that his mouth does. He lets the alien shepherd him towards the gates, even as the blaring fight or flight response grows with each step forward.

The shrieks suddenly grow in volume and frequency and then creature from inside does make a break for it. The thing pushes through the crowd gathered and dives at the entrance. As soon as it crosses the threshold, it starts seizing. Peter winces and angles himself away from the sight as the twitches escalate and then die down until the body is completely still.

Tony analyzes it. There’s a bronze-colored band around one of the creature’s appendages—it has so many that Tony’s unsure whether to call each a leg or an arm, or if there’s any meaningful distinction between the two. Bursts of light seem to crackle from the metal band like electricity. It must be what keeps the rest of the creatures behind the open gate.

But why have the gate in the first place? To stop suicidal escape attempts like the one they had just witnessed? Tony files the information and questions away for later, when they’re settled in—if that’s even a thing that can happen in these circumstances.

Their captors barely spare the body a glance before dragging Tony and Peter over it. Tony holds his breath, fearful of what the other creatures might do once they are in close proximity, but they simply part, creating a path down the center for them to pass through. A few snap their jaws or snarl, but they remain a couple feet away at all times. Tony notes the bands wrapped around various body parts of every being that he lays his eyes on. He’s sure that the aliens would have some protocol in place to zap anyone who attacked them. It’s an effective way to keep the prisoners in order.

They’re shoved along, through dark, cavernous tunnels.Tony tries to keep track of how many turns and which direction. They reach the end of a hall. There are two doors, one on each side.. The guards guide Peter one way, and Tony doesn’t realize that he’s being led in the other until it’s too late for him to do something about it. Their first rule is already going to be broken.

“Tony.” The word is calm, but the way that Peter’s eyes are darting back and forth is anything but.

Tony hopes his face isn’t betraying the same thing. “It’s fine. Don’t do anything stupid. Meet by the gate.”

It’s not an ideal rendezvous, but it’s the only distinguishable landmark that Tony saw. He hopes that all the creatures will have departed from there by the time Peter can make his way back to it. They won’t be on their best behavior without the guards around to tase them at any moment.

The last thing Tony sees before the door swings shut is a wave of pure terror washing over Peter’s face.

“If you do anything to him, I’ll burn this place to the ground.” Tony’s proud of how low and calm his voice is.

The alien just laughs.

The room they take Tony to is the alien version of the processing center of an earthly prison. They make Tony strip and hand him a repulsive puke-green uniform to replace his clothes with. The uniform is a one-size fits all type deal. There are no defined holes for arms or legs—it’s more of a sack that could fit over a variety of shapes. Tony finds a hole in the back that the previous wearer might have used to stick a tail through. He rips at the edges near his shoulders until he’s created his own makeshift sleeves before putting it on. The aliens had given him one of the smaller sacks, but it still hangs limply off of him, likely because the average prisoner is much larger than a human.

They clamp one of the bronze shock bands onto his wrist, welding the edges together way too close to his skin for comfort.

The aliens open a door out of the room and kick at his heels to get him moving. He glares over his shoulder at them, but doesn’t say anything. The wound is still bleeding from the last time they poked at it.

The new room is full—the occupants all in the same shapeless uniforms. He guesses that they must be new arrivals as well—his fellow inmates. Maybe he can make some friends. 

He scans the room for Peter, praying that he’s in here and not already making his way back to the gate. Tony spots him, hunched in on himself in a corner. He thought that his uniform was big, but Peter’s drowning in his, making him look even younger and more out of place here than he already was. It doesn’t help that he’s also squeezed behind two brutes of creatures that tower above him. It doesn’t look like they’re paying Peter any attention, but Tony still doesn’t like the proximity there. 

He starts pushing through bodies. “Yeah, yeah, excuse me, buddy. Coming through, watch out.”

He gets a few growls and some words in indecipherable languages—nothing like he’s ever heard before. But, no one gets too aggressive, probably because of the watchful guard hovering above them and the cuffs that could shock them at any moment.

Peter must have heard Tony’s voice, because he’s standing up straighter and his eyes are bright. 

“Tony!” Peter’s greeting is upbeat, a stark contrast to the dull gloom of the room

“Woah, there, don’t get too excited. We’re still locked up.”

Tony tries to sidestep the last two giant creatures between him and Peter, but they don’t seem willing to move. 

“Alright, asshole shove over.” They can’t understand him anyway, and it feels good to let out some of his pent up frustration.

The words win him a sharp glare. The guy closest to him raises a fist the size of Tony’s head. The guard shrieks and the guy’s head swivels towards him, leaving the fist poised, but not bringing it down. He looks defiant, but unsure. They’re all new here. He’s testing the waters, seeing what he can get away with. Tony doesn’t want to find out how far he’ll push the limits. He also doesn’t trust that the guard’s priority is to protect him. It doesn’t really seem like that kind of place.

Thankfully, the gap left by the arm allows enough space for Peter to duck through. He grabs Tony and drags him to the opposite corner, as far away from the fist as possible.

“This is a dream,” Peter says. “Has to be.”

“Don’t think so, kid.”

“But, look!” Peter points and Tony follows the finger to a slimy slug-looking thing near the center of the room. “That is the spitting image of Jabba-the-freaking-hut. No way that kind of thing actually exists.”

“You’re looking at it.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” 

Peter blurts out the words fast. It’s a non sequitur, but Tony gets it—this experience would be even more terrifying alone. He’s glad he’s here for Peter, too.

“Can’t say the same. Personally, I’d rather be in Cabo, under an umbrella, sipping a margarita. I’m going to lose my tan, here.”

Peter grins. “I think your tan might be the least of your worries. What are you going to do about your goatee?” 

He’s doubtful that he’ll live long enough for that to become a real problem. And if it does—well he’s been there before. He’s no stranger to captivity, that’s what started this whole superhero journey. He lets his jaw drop in mock horror anyway.

“I’ll still look better than the load of ugly mugs in this place.”

A few of the aliens near them turn to him at that. He squints at them, trying to figure out what their problem is. They look away slowly.

“Excuse me, terrans?”

Tony and Peter both startle at the English not coming out of either of their mouths. There’s a thick accent to go with it, and not an unfamiliar one. It’s British, or Asgardian, Tony realizes as he turns and sees the woman in question. Even in the drab attire they’re all outfitted in, there’s something undeniably regal about her—an air of superiority that has been present in every Asgardian that Tony’s ever meant. It’s not cocky exactly, just sure. 

“You are of earth,” she says when Tony and Peter don’t answer. “Correct?”

Tony nods. “And you’re one of Thor’s pals.”

Her head tilts to the side. “You know Thor?”

Before Tony can tell her just how well he knows the god of thunder, a larger door on the opposite side of the room from where Tony entered slides open. The guard shrieks and the prisoners around him come to life, scrambling for the exit. 

Tony gets knocked to the ground in the chaos. He tries to stand, but legs crash down around him, of all lengths and girths. He throws one arm over his head and the other over his chest. This would be a humiliating way to go. He’d have preferred the ship crashing. These days his biggest aspiration is to die quietly in his sleep. The prospect looks less promising every year.

Then, a hand grabs his arm and he latches onto it. Peter lifts him like he weighs nothing and Tony just clings on as Peter hightails it towards the exit.

The Asgardian is still next to them. She seems to be appraising Peter’s strength.

“He’s not the average human,” she muses. “That’s good.”

Tony’s doesn’t completely agree. Sure, it has its advantages, but others will take notice. People want strength on their side in places like this. And they’ll do nearly anything to get it.

“The guard said that the last one out of the room is a dead man. That’s why the stampede started.” She lifts a hand to Tony’s head, feeling behind his ear. “You can’t understand them.”

“No shit,” Tony replies. “We don’t know every language in the galaxy.”

“Not many do. But, everyone else has a translator. You won’t last long without one.”

She gives them a final nod, before turning. She slams a fist down on a prisoner in front of them, slipping through the space left by their falling form. She continues to create a path to the door for herself with swift kicks and shoves, until she leaves Tony’s sight. 

He kind of thought they had found an ally in her. He should have known that there’s none of that here. It’s every person for themselves. Yinsen had been an exception, a wonderful exception, not the standard. 

He taps Peter’s shoulder. “Put me down.”

Peter looks at him like he lost his mind.

“You heard her, kid, we’ve gotta get out of this room, pronto.”

“If I put you down, you’ll get trampled again.”

Frankly, it’s insulting. There’s no time to argue it, though. The number of people still trapped in the room is dwindling, slowly, but surely. 

“Fine! Carry me out then, let’s go.”

Permission is all that Peter needed. He throws Tony over his shoulder. The sudden change of position knocks the air out of Tony and he lets out an  _ oomph  _ as he feels the beginnings of the scab on his chest ripping from the skin around it.

Tony grips Peter’s shoulder even tighter than he had grabbed his arm a few minutes before. He clenches his teeth as Peter dodges around, catapulting through the stampede.

“Sorry, excuse me, so sorry,” he shouts.

Every creature they pass becomes part of a shield between them and death. Tony kind of hopes that Peter isn’t seeing it that way. The kid’s more aware of the evils of the world than he should be at his age, but he’s still gentle. Trading another’s life for his own is the kind of thing that he wouldn’t forgive himself for.

Tony probably won’t be able to protect him from all of that for much longer in here. The violence of the place is written in the cruel grins of the guards and the splattering of  _ please don’t let it be blood _ on the walls.

As soon as Peter gets them through the doorway and out of the way of the rest of the outpouring prisoners, he sets Tony down. There’s a triumphant grin on his face. It was just another challenge to him—he doesn’t realize the full extent of what this place is yet. A few years ago, Tony would have called that naïveté a detriment, but now he’s not so sure. With everything that’s happened in Peter’s young life already, he’s surprised that any of that idealistic outlook is still left—it should have been beaten out of him long ago. There’s strength in holding on to it. Tony’s going to try to keep it there as long as he can.

He starts walking away from the exit of the room and Peter follows. If he wants any chance of preserving some of that magical optimism, it’s best to get Peter as far away as possible before the last unfortunate prisoner is left.

Tony scans their surroundings, cataloguing the different creatures mulling around them. He doesn’t know the rules here, and neither do the other newbies who just got let out of processing. They’re all sizing each other up.

He doesn’t see the Asgardian. She’s probably long gone, finding a place to claim as her own. They need to do that, too. 

There are a lot of things that Tony needs to figure out. It would be easy to get caught up in all of them—most notably the translator, but on a more broad scale, their escape plan. Instead, he focuses on Peter.

“We’ll never speak of that,” Tony says. “You never slung me over your shoulders like a sack of potatoes—capiche?”

The flash of a genuine smile and breathes of laughter are enough of a reward for Tony to try to stay light and positive forever. “Capiche.”

“I really weigh nothing to you, huh?”

“It was like holding a newborn.”

“New rule: I control your speaking privileges and you just lost them.”

Peter mimes locking his lips and handing over the key. Tony accepts it, bringing his arm back to make the most exaggerated throwing motion that he can. Peter tries to school his face into a scandalized expression, but the quirked corners of his mouth betray him.

“In all seriousness, you did good, kid.”

“Thanks!”

Tony cuffs him on the head. “What did I just say about speaking?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay! Midterms are the worst!

Tony wonders how the guards keep track of where the prisoners go in here. It seems to be an endless, wide, curving tunnel. They probably don’t care. But there must be a purpose — a reason why they lock people up rather than just killing them outright. 

Tony knows that they can’t stay in the open. It’s clear from the looks they get from some of the other prisoners. They’re not safe, easy prey—smaller than average with no talons or fangs or other clear means of defending themselves.

Their only chance at shelter seems to be the cracks in the walls which lead to small caves. Each one that they pass is already occupied. Tony and Peter receive hisses and growls just for glancing into the locations. 

They’re at it for a long time, keeping out of the way of anyone, searching for a place to — Tony doesn’t even know exactly what — sit? Sleep? Exist? His mind spirals with questions as they walk. There’s no source of food or water that he can see. And they need the goddamn translators that they apparently won’t survive without. Escape is already starting to seem secondary to just survival.

The high-pitched alarm goes off again and the cuff around his arm pulses a few times. Tony would kill for them to use any other sound. If he ever gets back to Earth, he’s never going to complain about the default iPhone alarm tones again (even though iPhones are inferior to starkPhones in every way). The radar tone would be soothing compared to this.

Almost as abruptly as the alarm started, before Peter even has the chance to cover his ears, the sound cuts out. Something else filters through the speakers instead. Tony recognizes the clicks as part of the language of the aliens that captured them.

“What do you think they’re saying?”

Tony shrugs in defeat — translators, they need  _ translators. _

A creature shoots past them, squawking just in time for Tony and Peter to leap out of the way. It could be a coincidence, or it could have something to do with whatever message is being relayed over the intercom. They exchange a glance and pick up the pace of their strides.

They only make it a few steps before the voice stops and the lights flicker out, plunging them into darkness. 

Tony goes completely still. It’s like his brain tries to make up for the absence of sight by creating a roaring in his ears that overwhelms him to the point of paralysis. For a moment, he isn’t sure if he exists. There’s no light, he can’t move. All he knows is the echoing in his ears. He gulps in one breath, then another until the noise begins to fade. He slowly regains the ability to think and move again, shaking his head in an attempt to stop panic from distorting his thoughts.

“Peter,” he whispers, groping in the darkness.

A cold hand wraps around his arm, fingers digging in. Tony jumps and his first instinct is to pull away, but the grip remains firm.

“It’s me, it’s me,” Peter says. “I can still see, a little.”

Tony’s eyes are starting to adjust, as well. Probably not as much as Peter’s are, but he can make out the outline of Peter’s hand on his arm, and the whites of Peter’s wide eyes.

“Your hand’s fucking freezing.”

Peter immediately removes it. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s not what I — are you cold? I told you, you have to tell me these things. How cold are we talking — ”

Something moves fast past them, brushing against Tony’s back. The unexpected contact knocks him forward. 

Peter’s icy hands find their way around Tony’s arm again. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says. “We’ve got to move.”

Tony just barely catches the slight motion of Peter’s nod in the darkness. Most of the day had been spent walking, but now they run. It’s painful, Tony can feel the wound on his chest protesting each step.

There’s another swift movement to their left. Tony only feels the consequent rush of air as something passes.

“Can you see it?”

“Not really.”

They keep running, the occasional being flying past them as they go. Tony curses himself for slowing Peter down, curses his chest wound, and the aliens, and every single decision he made to end up here, running from god knows what. 

Tony doesn’t know if the openings in the walls of the cave are meant to be rooms, or more likely cells given their location, or if it’s just how the tunnels were naturally made. The layout is starting to seem too uniform to be natural. 

They peek into each one that they pass. Tony know that they can’t run forever (and he’ll tire out long before Peter does). The next best alternative is to hunker down in one of the cells. They finally find one that’s empty and Tony pushes Peter toward it, scrambling in after him.

They move to the back corner, panting. Tony’s heart is pounding high in his throat, a feeling that he never quite seems to get used to, no matter how many battles, and rushes of adrenaline, and panic attacks that he experiences. He can feel Peter shaking next to him. It must be from fear, he can’t still be cold after all that running. And Peter doesn’t shake when he’s cold, Tony reminds himself. No thermoregulation —spider thing.  It doesn’t feel too cold in the cell, but Tony hadn’t thought it was cold in the tunnel either. He'll need to find a way to keep Peter warm down here. Another thing that he needs to figure out. Because that’s what he does. He fixes things. He needs to fix this.

They sit in silence, watching shadows pass the little opening that leads to their chamber. Occasionally, the quiet is punctuated by an inhuman shriek which sets Peter shaking again and Tony doesn’t know how to handle that. He isn’t sure whether to comfort or to ignore it so Peter won’t get embarrassed. He decides that they’re probably past embarrassment in here.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’m — I don’t know, Mr — I mean, Tony. What is going on? How did — we were in New York and then the ship and now we’re here and I just — . How are we going to get out of here?”

Tony swallows. He can feel Peter’s eyes on him without even squinting to try to see what the kid is doing in the dark. 

“We’ll figure something out. We have rules, we’ll make a plan once we figure out what this place is all about, alright?”

Tony doesn’t know how to walk the line between offering hope and practicality. That was always Steve’s job. He wishes the rest of the team were here, except that he doesn’t want any of them subjected to this. But, he hopes they’re looking. Thor seems like their best bet. There’s an Asgardian here after all, maybe Thor can find them.

It still feels like a long shot. It’s a big universe.

“They already separated us once,” Peter says. “We can’t really stop them.”

Tony hesitates, then nods. “We’ll do what we can.”

That’s all they can do.

Peter doesn’t look convinced. Tony can tell that his forehead is scrunched up, his jaw set with tension. He can't blame him for being skeptical. 

“There are rules here,” Tony adds. “We just need to learn them, and follow them, and we’ll be okay. We know that the lights go out now and we’ll figure out why. We’re fine.”

If he says it enough, maybe he’ll start to believe it too.

* * *

After their brief conversation, Peter falls silent. Tony leaves him to think; he’s entitled to that. There’s a lot to process and Tony doesn’t know how many hours or days have passed since they woke up on the ship. Peter’s probably tired.

“Go to sleep if you want. I’ll watch.”

Peter just hums in response so Tony takes that to mean that he’s already halfway there. Tony scoots forward a little, positioning himself between Peter and the entrance. He tries not to think about what he could actually do to protect him if one of the larger, fanged creatures came in. The only good thing is that the entrance might be small enough to discourage some of the bigger ones.

Tony pulls the top of his uniform down so that he can look at the wound there. It’s still wrapped in the sheets from the bed on the ship, but they’re soaked through now — dark where they used to be beige. It’s sticky and uncomfortable. His hands itch to rip the sheets off and replace them with a new bandage, but there’s no such material around to use.

He takes a deep breath. It’s okay. It’s not the worst injury he’s had in a seemingly impossible situation. This was how it all started — in a cave, with a chest wound, and no foreseeable end in sight. The parallels are hard to ignore, but so are the notable differences. There’s the space and aliens thing — _ don’t think about that _ . There’s Peter instead of Yinsen. Tony pushes that comparison away. He’ll be the protector this time instead of the one protected, he’ll make sure of that.

His thoughts drift to Pepper, as they always do. She's probably beside herself, with both worry and anger. She told him to stop, countless times, and he could never stick to that for long. He's made it a few months, at most, and then he's back at it because there's always another threat and he always feels that same responsibility to step in. The worst part is that he doesn't exactly regret it, because if he hadn't, Peter would be here alone. Tony looks up at the dark ceiling and makes a silent vow, to himself and to Pepper, that if he ever gets back, that's it. This is his last act—the finale, whichever way it might end. He glances back at Peter. He'll do everything he can to get the kid to stop, too. The hero gig isn't worth it.

There’s a shuffling sound from outside. Tony notes it, but files it away with all of the other sounds that they’ve heard. It’s one of the less disturbing ones as far as he’s concerned, just someone walking by.

Then a light shines through their entryway. Tony brings a hand up to shield his eyes and rises to his feet with some difficulty. The light searches around the cell and then lands directly on Tony’s face. He winces and turns away from it. 

The guard holding the light enters the room, speaking rapidly in words that Tony doesn’t understand. He puts his hands up — which seems like a safe choice — and takes a step back, sure to keep himself in front of Peter.

The light leaves Tony and dances around the room again before finding Peter. The guard lets out another series of clicks and Tony realizes that there’s a second guard that the first must be speaking to. 

“What do you want from us?” 

Tony knows that they can understand him now. They still don’t answer, don’t even look at him when he speaks.

They leave the room, taking the light with them. Tony didn’t know he could be grateful for the darkness. He sags back to the ground in relief. 

Then the light returns and something arcs through the air towards him. It hits Tony square in the shoulder and drops to the ground. He swats it away automatically, hears it thud against the wall on the other side of the cell. His arms go up over his head and he angles his body over Peter’s to protect him from what he’s sure is going to be an incoming explosion. 

Nothing of the sort happens. Instead of the deafening sound of detonation, there’s just the lilted laughter of the guards and then a clang of something heavy hitting the floor.

Tony can tell that they leave because the darkness in front of his closed eyes becomes completely black as the light disappears. He tentatively opens them and makes his way across the cell to check on whatever they had thrown at him, praying that a bomb isn’t about to explode in his face.

Instead, he finds a sack. He tugs on the string around the top until it loosens and pulls it open. He reaches inside, and as soon as he touches the contents he snaps his hand back in fear. He needs to calm down. It’s just a bag. After a deep breath, he sticks the hand back in and feels around. There are small particles, larger than sand, but finer than most rocks. Almost like cereal or granola, but softer. 

His shifts his gaze back to the entrance where a pail sits—the source of the clang. He walks over to it with caution, eyes never leaving the entrance. When he dips his hand into it, his fingers come back wet. He holds one near his face and sniffs it before licking it. It smells like nothing, tastes slightly of rust. It’s definitely water—maybe not water that would pass any sort of drinking standards in the states, but water nonetheless. The stuff in the sack must be food.

It’s one thing to check off Tony’s list of worries. The guards do provide them with some means to survive here.

“We’ve got some food, Pete,” Tony calls over his shoulder. “And water.”

There’s no response. The silence sends pinpricks of terror spiking up and down Tony’s spine. Suddenly, he’s acutely aware that Peter hadn’t said anything at all in the presence of the guards. 

He leaves the sack next to the pail and crouches back by Peter. 

“I know I said to sleep, buddy, but I didn’t know you could sleep through all that.”

Still, nothing. There’s a sinking feeling in Tony’s stomach, like his heart is dropping out of place.

“Peter, wake up.” 

Tony grabs his shoulder. It’s cold. Far too cold. Even colder than his hand had felt back in the tunnel.

“Shit.” Tony shakes him. “Peter, Peter.”

He starts running through what he knows about Peter’s thermoregulation or lack thereof. The kid had realized that something wasn’t right pretty quickly his first winter after the spider bite. He’d gotten cold easily, felt lethargic. Tony and Bruce had done some light testing on the matter, but nothing too stressful or invasive enough to freak Peter out. They’d theorized that he’d hibernate under extreme conditions. 

These shouldn’t be extreme conditions. Tony’s only slightly chilled.

“Peter, come on.” 

Tony gives a particularly vigorous shake and Peter mumbles something indistinct. His eyelids start to flutter.

“That’s it. Wake up.”

Finally, his eyes blink open. Tony wishes the guards would come back with the lights so he could check him over.

“Hey, hey, stay awake.”

“S’cold,” Peter slurs.

“I know, I know.” Tony glances back toward the sack of food. “Keep your eyes open. I’ll be right back.”

He grabs the sack and drags the pail of water closer. He takes a handful of granola and holds it out to Peter.

“Eat.”

“Tired.”

“No. Eat.” 

Tony shoves his hand up to Peter’s face. For the first time, Peter actually seems to look at the pile in Tony’s hand.

His nose wrinkles. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Peter takes a few pieces into his own hand and drops a few of them into his mouth. His face contorts almost immediately.

“Tastes like chalk.”

“It’s all we’ve got.”

Peter eats a few more mouthfuls and a sip of water before his head lulls back against the wall.

“Come on, kid, the way you normally eat—you must be starving.”

Peter’s head shakes. “Just cold ‘n tired.”

“I think those two are related.”

“Said I could sleep.”

“Yeah, well I changed my mind. Get over it.”

Tony rubs his hands over Peter’s arms to try to bring some warmth to the disturbing lack of it. Tony wishes the aliens had at least left them with their clothes. The uniforms are too light and flimsy to provide any warmth. The worst part is that Tony doesn’t know for sure that it’s hibernation-mode that Peter is sinking into. It could be lights out for good mode. Some spiders just die in the winter. He should have done more tests. He thought he had all the time in the world to figure that kind of thing out for Peter. Tony should have learned long ago not to take any time for granted. The other shoe always drops.

Time becomes irrelevant. Tony tucks Peter into his side to try to keep him warm and awake. He talks about old movies, well old by Peter’s standards, which really means not that old at all. He hauls Peter to his feet and makes him walk the length of the cell a few times. He watches the door and he worries and he tries to figure out what to do with little success.

* * *

The lights flick on at the same time that the wretched alarm begins and the cuffs around their arms zap, eliciting groans from both Tony and Peter at the sensory assault. But as soon as the initial shock of the sudden light and sound fade, Tony’s just thankful that Peter’s responsive.

“It’s night and day,” Tony muses aloud. “Alarm at night, lights out, get a meal. Alarm in the morning, lights on.”

“Hmmm.”

It’s not the complete story. Something in the atmosphere had seemed more frantic, more high stakes, after the lights went out. Creatures were sprinting past them. They need to figure out why.

Tony appraises Peter. His eyes are barely open, eyelids drooping. Every time he blinks, Tony’s afraid that they won’t open again. Tony brushes a hand over his arm. It’s still cold. Tony wants to make him move around, more than just the few yards across the cell. Maybe they can find a warmer location, or something that resembles a coat.

But, there’s movement now. Tony can see legs through the little entrance, and not just those of one or two aliens. He walks closer to it and sticks his head out, just enough to get a good look at the main tunnel. 

It’s everyone. It must be everyone. The sheer number of creatures marching is staggering. Tony sweeps his head back and forth but doesn’t see an end in either direction.

So, there’s a decision to be made, they follow or they don’t. And they’re the ones who are out of the loop. Without the translators, they have no idea what the morning announcement could have been. The creatures out there —all moving in the same direction—do.

“Up,” Tony says, extending a hand for Peter to grab. “Something’s happening.”

Peter’s glazed-over eyes sharpen with anticipation. He accepts the hand —Tony winces at the temperature,  it’s freezing, too cold, he needs to fix it — and Tony helps him to his feet.

They duck out of their cell into the crowd. It’s more orderly than Tony would have expected it to be, everyone seems to be minding their own business, following the person in front of them. Tony and Peter don’t even receive any unwelcome looks when they slip into the ranks. 

At first, Tony has to sort of prop Peter upright in order to keep him moving forward. But quickly, he realizes the upside to rushing through the tunnels with the mass of bodies — the temperature rises considerably, and with it, Peter’s energy levels. His arms are still clasped firmly around his body, but his gait becomes steady and his face more alert. He’s not one hundred percent back to normal, but he’s better than he was. Tony will take that for now.

But, relief is often misleading. Seconds after Tony feels the knots in his shoulders beginning to unwind themselves, Peter lets out a surprised grunt and falls to the ground. Tony’s heart skips a beat, and he throws himself in front of where Peter had fallen to block the crowd from trampling him, but the action is unneeded. The creatures behind them just divert their paths to the sides. Tony sends a silent  _ thank you _ to whatever force is keeping the prisoners so calm.

Tony kneels next to Peter. He looks back and forth, searching for any sign of injury or whatever might have landed him on the ground. It takes a lot to bring someone with his strength down.

“I’m alright, I just tripped,” Peter mumbles, pushing himself to his feet.

Well, sometimes it’s just the kid’s own clumsiness.

Tony stares at the floor where Peter had been. There’s something there. It looks like a vine. He follows it with his eyes. It’s hard to do with all the aliens passing by, but eventually, he realizes that it’s attached to something. It looks like a speckled rock, but then as more creatures shift, Tony sees a face. 

“Is he dead?” Peter’s voice trembles. “Do you think they ran over him?”

Tony swallows. It’s clear now, he can make out patches of blood that he hadn’t noticed upon first glance. The creature is leopard-like, tan with darker splotches and the long tail that Peter had tripped on snaking towards them. The poor soul is cut up, numerous gashes lining it’s flank. There are char-marks in places too, suggesting hits from blasters. It’s a gruesome sight. Death never gets easier. People become numb to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Then, Tony’s focus is drawn to the ears. He stands, and starts weaving through the crowd to get closer to the creature’s head. 

“Tony? What are you doing?”

“Stay there.”

He swears he can see silver metal peeking out from tufts of fur around the ears. He needs to get a better look. He needs to get closer. 

He crouches by the head, parting the fur with his hands. There is metal there, a curved line implanted into the skin about an inch behind the ear. Tony runs his finger along the edges of it before turning the head to the other side and feeling the same curved groove behind the other ear.

“I think he’s dead.” Peter’s looking down at Tony with resigned sadness in his eyes. He hadn’t stayed put. Tony doesn’t know why he expects him to listen.

“We need his translators.”

Peter’s face morphs from mournful to confused to horrified as he processes the situation. “You’re going to, what? Carve them out of him? Like they did to you on the ship?”

Tony sighs. “You heard the Asgardian, we need them. We’ll die without them.”

“He’s already  _ dead _ . You can’t just — ”

Peter trails off, but Tony can guess where he was going with the sentence. Mutilate a dead body. Of course Tony doesn’t want to mutilate a dead body. With the state that the leopard-like being is in, he’d gone through enough when he was alive. Tony doesn’t want to add to his suffering, but part of the solution to one of their problems is right in front of them. They won’t receive a lot of gifts in here. They have to take advantage of them when they do. Their safety — _ Peter’s _ safety— depends on translators.

“Exactly, he’s dead, so he doesn’t need them anymore.”

Peter’s eyes narrow. He’s looking at Tony like he doesn’t recognize who he’s seeing. Tony wants more than anything to take back the words, but he can’t. They need the translators. Peter will understand that in time.

Tony turns back to the creature. He sticks the fingernail of his index finger between the metal and the skin around it, assessing how it’s connected to the body. Then, he does the same with his thumb on the other side and pulls slightly. There’s no give. If he had tools, he could get it out, but he doesn’t have any tools.

He looks back up. Peter meets his eyes firmly, mouth pursed in a thin line, as if he knows what Tony’s about to ask.

“Can you rip them out without damaging them?”

The line of Peter’s mouth twitches downward, but he leans toward the head anyway. His hand lingers above the translator for a moment before he reaches down, holding it in the same fashion Tony had, and pulls. 

After a few seconds of increasing his strength in small increments, the translator sits between Peter’s finger and thumb, detached from the body. There’s still some fur and skin sticking to the backside of it. He drops it into Tony’s hand without a word. The next one is quicker. Peter practically throws it at Tony before standing and moving with the crowd once again. Tony curls his fist around the devices and follows.

“I’m sorry,” he says. And he means it. Peter shouldn’t have had to do that.

Peter doesn’t reply at first, and it makes Tony’s stomach churn with guilt, but his job isn’t to be Peter’s fun mentor up here. It’s to keep him alive, and some things just have to be done.

“I know we had to,” Peter finally says, staring straight ahead. “It just sucks.”

Tony nods. He twirls the translators around in his hand as they march with the other prisoners in silence.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...hiiiiii
> 
> I could list excuses but that’s annoying so I just want to say that I recognize that it has been forever and, from the bottom of my heart, my bad.
> 
> I really hope you all enjoy this chapter! There most likely will not be as long of a wait before the next one but I don’t want to promise an exact day lol so sorry.

The crowd comes to an abrupt stop. Tony has to grab Peter’s shoulder to stop him from walking directly into the six-armed alien in front of them. 

There’s something about standing, packed close together, only inches of space between creatures, that makes Tony nervous. The atmosphere feels antsy. People are shifting and shuffling in place. Moving with them had felt safer. Then, they were completing a task, putting their energy into something. Now all that purpose is gone. The energy could be placed into other things.

Tony scans the tunnel for any kind of escape route. He tries not to imagine a fight breaking out, but it’s his nature to plan for every worst-case-scenario. Historically, nothing good comes from stagnant groups of unhappy prisoners.

There’s no way out that he can see. Bodies flank them in every direction, and even if that wan’t the case, cells had stopped lining the tunnel about a mile back. There's nothing for them to escape into. Tony’s hand — the one without the translators — comes up over his chest. He longs for the nanotech compartment. To have a suit, to be able to hover over any mess that might occur, would be invaluable. 

His only solace is that Peter could get out. Tony’s seen him leap more than the distance from the floor to the ceiling. He could launch himself upward, stick to the top and wait out any ruckus underneath him.

As if he can sense that Tony’s thinking about him, Peter shifts closer to him. He still refuses to make eye contact, which hurts, but at least he’s staying close. That means he still trusts him. Or maybe Tony’s just all he has here. Tony tries not to think too hard about that.

Every few minutes, the people in front of them move a few paces forward, allowing Tony and Peter to take their former spots. It’s like being in line for a ride at a theme park, not that Tony has much experience actually waiting in those kind of lines (rules tend to shift for him, but he understands the concept). They’re being led somewhere, to enter some other space, only a few beings at a time. 

Tony runs through what might await them. They’d already survived a night, so it wouldn’t make sense to sort them into more organized, secure cells now. It must be something different entirely.

“Can you see anything? Up ahead?”

Peter finally glances at Tony. The betrayed look is gone now, back to just baseline fear. He stands on his tiptoes, trying to peer over the crowd. Then he leaps, but not quite to the ceiling. He rises just above the tallest of creatures before sinking back to the ground.

“I see the end.”

“And?”

Peter’s face goes blank. “And what?”

Tony can feel a vein in his temple spike and start to pulse. “And. What is at the end?”

Peter shrugs. “A wall. I think there’s a door.”

Tony sighs. He bends his knees once and then straightens them out. His leg starts tapping against his will.

“We still have a while to wait,” Peter adds. 

The frequency of his leg’s bouncing increases.

* * *

The tunnel narrows as they approach the door —it’s more like a gate, it couldn't just be a door, this place is full of gates— that Peter had mentioned. The crowd in front of them has thinned out enough that Tony can see all the way to the end. The line will become single-file by the time they reach it.

There are two guards by the door, one of them is the same species as the aliens that had captured them in the first place, and the other is slightly more humanoid—two arms and two legs, no wings. 

Creatures are sent through the doors one at a time, and not always in the order that they arrive. Some are filtered off to the side and have to wait for a while before being escorted to wherever the gate leads. Tony tries to find a pattern, but he doesn’t think it’s based off of any sort of order. Sometimes there are a few prisoners between those pulled to the side, sometimes three or four in a row get pulled over. It feels random but he doesn't understand why it would be. It grates on his nerves. He doesn’t like to be out of the loop.

The guards seem to do a rough inspection of each prisoner before they are allowed through the gate. Nothing extensive, just a quick once over. They have the prisoners put their hands up (if they have hands) and pay extra attention to the cuffs. Tony looks down at his own, trying to figure out if there’s any information they could glean from it. His looks smooth all the way around, except the distortion where the metal was pieced together. He grabs Peter’s wrist, but it’s much the same, nothing to distinguish one of theirs from the other’s.

As the tunnel continues to narrow, Tony makes a choice. He shoves Peter in front of him. Neither option is ideal. He doesn’t want to make Peter go through the door first, but there’s no guarantee either way with how they’re filtering certain creatures to the side. At least this way, he’ll be able to keep his eyes on Peter for as long as possible.

Tony leans in so that his head is over Peter’s shoulder. “Okay, listen up, alright?”

Peter scans up and down Tony’s face before he nods. It’s a shaky, almost imperceptible, motion.

“You remember the cell from last night? You could find it again?”

His head bobs again, this time more certain. Tony’s impressed. He’s not entirely confident in his own ability to make his way back to the same cell. Everything back there had looked identical. If they can get in the general vicinity though, they should be able to find each other.

“Great. If we end up back in this tunnel, that’s where we’ll meet, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Whatever happens, when you get through that door, be smart. Do what the guards want you to do — whatever you need to do to stay alive. Don’t be a hero.”

Peter’s eyes cloud over. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Peter swallows. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Stay away from anyone who looks angry. Or from fights, okay?”

He nods again. They’re close to the gate now. There are so many things Tony should remind Peter to do, he starts spouting them off, rapid-fire.

“Look for anything you can use as a jacket. But, don’t put yourself in danger to get one. Also—”

“Mr. Stark. I get it.”

Tony sniffs. “You’re not supposed to call me that anymore, remember? You’re already forgetting rules.”

“Oh my god.”

There’s only one more prisoner between them in the guards. Tony watches him put his hands up, palms open. He looks down at the translators curled in his own hand. Before his brain can gripe about how unsanitary and outright gross it will be, he pops both translators into his mouth. He positions one in each cheek.

Peter’s staring back at him with renewed horror on his face.

“Wait, you should take one,” Tony says. “In case — ”

In case they get separated, or worse. 

Peter shakes his head. “One, gross. Two, we’re only splitting up for a few minutes. It will probably be like last time, when they gave us our uniforms? That was fast.”

“You don’t know that.” Tony fishes one of the translators out of his mouth and holds it out to Peter. “Take it, now, before — ”

The horned guard squawks. Peter turns immediately and Tony brings the hand with the translator behind his back. 

The more human guard looks at Peter, her face contorting slightly in confusion. Tony feels her eyes brush over him as well. A string of syllables leaves her mouth. It sounds more like a language to Tony’s ears than some of the other sounds he has heard since getting captured. The horned guard clicks something back. 

While both guards are distracted in their conversation, Tony takes the opportunity to shove the translator back in his mouth. He tongues it over into his cheek and tastes the tang of the fallen creature’s blood. He gags slightly.

The humanoid guard focuses back on Tony and Peter. She looks at Peter and says something. Peter glances back at Tony, helplessly. The guard purses her lips and turns to Tony instead. She repeats the same string of phrases. Tony clenches his teeth. He doesn’t want to admit that he and Peter can’t understand a thing she says.

“No — hear?” 

Tony’s jaw drops open. He hears Peter gasp. The guard’s face folds into a twisted smile at the reaction.

“We can hear — just not — ” Belatedly, he realizes that the guard probably just didn’t have the word for ‘understand’ and knows exactly what position they’re in. “Never mind.”

The smiles widens, revealing fangs that stick out over her lips. “Earth. Not many.” 

“Well, we’re a long way from home.”

“Tell me you’s fighters,” the guard continues, pointing to their partner. “We see.”

The smile falls off her face in an instant. Peter is ushered forward. The guard reaches for his arms and pushes them upwards. They look over his cuff, feeling around the length of it. They talk amongst themselves. The horned guard appears to consult some sort of tablet on the table.

The other guard nods and then turns, typing in a code, while covering the keypad with her other hand. The gates starts to swing open and the guards shove Peter towards it. The sick grin is back on the guard’s face.

Something about this feels more ominous than when they’d been separated to get checked in. Everything in Tony is screaming at him not to let Peter pass through the gate without him, but putting up a fight won’t help. It can only make matters worse for the both of them.

He keeps repeating the sentiment in his head  _ stay calm, fighting won’t help, stay calm, fighting won’t help.  _ But this time, both his body and his mouth revolt against his brain. He finds himself surging forward.

“Leave him alone! Stop!”

One of the guards squawks and presses a button on his handset. The cuff on Tony’s wrist lights up, just for a moment. His body follows suit, like thousands of needles pressing into him from all angles. He’s been shocked before, in lab mishaps, or battles with certain super villains. This is far from the worst he’s gotten, but it’s still enough to bring him to his knees. 

He stays on the ground as his muscles pulse and contract. He cranes his neck upward. It’s hard to make out Peter’s expression from the way that his vision seems to be fading in and out, black pinpricks distorting the edges, but the kid’s clearly looking at him. Tony reaches one of his twitching hands up.

“Careful,” he mutters. “Be careful.”

The gate slams shut.

The humanoid guard strides over to Tony, stares down at him with disdain.

“Stupid,” she says.

Tony’s brain agrees. He tries to move his tongue around to make sure that the translators are still there. It takes a lot of concentration, but he manages to do it after a few tries. Both have stayed lodged beside his teeth. It’s a relief. His stupidity could have cost them everything. There’s no telling when they would find another chance to obtain translators. 

The guard halls him to his feet. Tony tries to raise his arms when prompted, but they twitch and flail the whole way up. After the guards have finished snickering about it, one holds his arms in place while the other looks him up and down. They check over his cuff, just as they had done with Peter and then move him to the waiting area on the side.

“No,” Tony says. “Please, let me through. He’s just a kid, come on. Please. What do you want?”

They spare him a final glance, and a few more laughs, before bringing the next prisoner in line forward.

* * *

Creatures get thrown into the waiting area with Tony. Then, they get chosen to leave through the gate. He cycles through countless waiting buddies. 

He employs a variety of tactics to try to escape the purgatory. He screams at the guards, he begs, he bargains. He even lays down flat in the penned off area so that he takes up more space, hoping to annoy them into choosing him. Nothing has any affect besides making them laugh. 

The one thing he doesn’t try is making a run for it. There’s a welt under the cuff from the shock. It burns, and the metal grates against it whenever he moves. The pain, he can take, and he would gladly experience it again, tenfold, if it meant he could get to Peter. But, he would never get there. He’d be zapped again. The only outcome would be debilitating himself further. He needs to start following the advice he had given Peter and his brain’s logic.

After what feels like hours, he resigns himself to sitting in the corner of the area. He rests his hands on his knees and his face in his hands, sulking. He stops keeping track of how many people get thrown in next to him and how many get taken out. He doesn’t even look up when the guards walk over to pick someone out.

So, he doesn’t notice when a familiar face gets thrown into the ring beside him.

“You again.”

The Asgardian. Tony perks up.

“Well, hello there, m’lady,” he drawls. “Nice weather we’re having, hmm?”

She snorts. “You survived the night. And the boy?”

Tony sticks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. She nods.

“Translators?”

“In my goddamn mouth.” He opens up wide enough that she can get a glimpse of the metal.

Her eyes widen and then her face settles into a soft smile of approval. “You’ve killed for them already.”

“What? No! He was already dead.”

The smile skews into a disappointed line. “Shame. I was about to say that you might just survive this.”

“You’re vaguely terrifying,” Tony says. “Got a name?”

“Brunnhilde,” she replies. “I suppose I should ask yours. Though you’ll be dead soon.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Stark.”

She repeats the name. It rolls off her tongue slowly as she studies him. He can’t tell if she’s heard it before. He doesn’t know if she’s well-acquainted with Thor, or if she’s been in contact with him since he joined the troop of Earth’s mightiest heroes, but her presence and connection to him gives Tony a small glimmer of hope. Thor could get here. He might be able to rescue them.

“So, Brunnhilde, do you know what happens behind that--”

Tony’s arm is yanked sharply upward. An undignified yelp escapes his lips. It pleases the guard. Tony can see her fangs again. He flinches automatically, but the grip holds strong.

“Now,” the guard says, gesturing towards the door.

It’s what Tony’s wanted the whole time. That doesn’t stop a pang of fear from settling in his stomach.

He walks toward the gate, the guards hover on either side of him the entire way. He spares a look over his shoulder at Brunnhilde.

“Show no mercy, Stark. Your opponent will not.”

The pit in his stomach deepens and a shiver runs throughout his body. 

The gate creaks open, revealing another tunnel behind it, no different than the one he’d spent the night in. The monotony down here is enough to kill a man. The tunnel splits off at two sharp 90 degree angles. One of the guards points a taloned finger to the right. Tony contemplates going left, just to be difficult, but wisely decides against it and stumbles forward, banking to the right.

The tunnel continues in that direction for a few hundred feet and then curves to the left. After what he thinks is a shorter distance, he reaches a dead end. There’s no path in front of him, and only a small opening to the left that’s outlined in red light. He feels around the red-trimmed edges, but there’s no latch or lever that he recognizes. 

He’s about to go back when the light turns green. He slides a suspicious eye over it, then repeats the search with his hand. It yields the same result.

But, green means go. Maybe that truly is a universal phenomenon. He takes a deep breath and then steps forward into the small box-like opening. As soon as he does, a sharp click resounds through the space. Tony glances up and then behind him. 

_ Click-click-click-click. _

He whips his head around to face forward once again. What he had previously thought was a dead-end wall is sliding open, one latch at a time. Light, not quite natural, but brighter than Tony’s seen since his capture, filters through the expanding crack. He squints and brings an arm up to shield his eyes. 

When the wall has finished retracting, Tony steps out of it. He’s met by a near deafening roar. It almost sounds like a football stadium after a game-winning touchdown. Tony blinks a few times and looks up. He’s met with floodlights. It’s disorienting after so much time in dim light or complete darkness. 

As his eyes start to adjust, he realizes that his original assessment about a stadium wasn’t far off the mark. Beyond the floodlights he starts to make out creatures. They’re shouting, waving flags in the air, stomping their feet. 

He starts to feel light-headed staring at them. He brings his line of sight back to the ground. Dots dance before his eyes. He shakes his head and blinks. It appears that he’s in an arena. There are shapes scattered around the space, but he’s having trouble making out what they are.

One is moving toward him. He flies through the air before he can register that he should be moving, hitting the side of the area with a loud thud. He lands hard, face first into the dirt. The impact on his chest wound sends him hissing in pain and gasping for breath. For the second time today, he’s struggling to rise from his hands and knees.

There's a noise above him. He rolls to the side, narrowly escaping a giant fist. Adrenaline kicks in and he scrambles up to his feet. His vision is back, not completely, but enough that he can make out more of his surroundings.

This is his ‘opponent’, as Brunhild had stated. The creature reminds Tony of the Hulk, but larger, and more gray than green. The Hulk crossed with a T-Rex. He scans the arena. This is their battlefield. There are piles of sand. Some sort of catapult sits in the far corner. There’s a pool of water in the middle. The ground is also dotted with a smattering of different objects. Tony sees a few weapons, unfortunately no guns or blasters that he’d be able to use against the Hulk-creature in any meaningful way. There are clubs, a few swords. He doesn’t have the strength to do any damage with a club. His best bet is one of the swords.

He sprints toward the nearest one. The creature is right on his heels. It’s a blessing that he isn’t exactly fast. He lumbers around, long strides keeping the same distance between them as they cross the arena. 

As he approaches the sword, Tony doesn’t slow. He can’t afford to. He leans down and grabs the handle on the fly.

He holds it up to the lights and rotates it back and forth. The edges are dull and blunt. It’s not the kind of sword to stab someone with. It looks more like one of the safety swords that Cap had the team practice with on a few occasions, much to the chagrin of everyone else. Tony won’t be able to break the tough skin of his opponent with it.

He’s realizing quickly that this isn’t a game that was meant for him. The arena is set up for a show. His captors don’t want there to be a quick kill. They want it to be drawn out, violent and gory. Without a suit, Tony’s strength in battle is his mind. This isn’t meant to foster that sort of fight, only physical prowess.

He can’t run in circles forever, keeping the creature a few paces behind him. His lungs are already starting to burn. He just needs to keep it up until he comes up with a plan. He’s going to have to change the game to fit his own needs. He needs to think. 

There are two priorities here. The first is to get out of this arena alive so he can find Peter. The second is to keep the translators intact. He can’t let the creature hit his face or the probability of damaging the translators goes up.

He scans over the circular enclosure again as he runs while simultaneously wracking his brain. The obvious trick to winning is being the bigger, stronger, faster creature. His opponent wins two out of three categories and the pair sits at a tie in the other.

But, all the creatures here are losers in the grand scheme of the prison. They’re all controlled by the guards, most of which are the horned-winged aliens that are smaller than Tony is. And yes those aliens can fly and emit purple smoke, which Tony decidedly cannot do, but the real equalizer, the things that keep the prisoners in line, are the bands around their wrists.

Tony chances a look behind him. He catches the glint of bronze on the creature’s left arm. He glances around the arena once more and forms a terrible plan.

He places the blade between his teeth and climbs up one of the sand piles, only falling once in his haste to get to the top. Sand sticks to the blood seeping from the wound in his chest. It’s going to be hell to clean out later, but that’s not the thing to dwell on now.

“Hey Rex, over here buddy,” he yells, as loud as he can. It’s hard to raise his voice with the translators jammed in his cheeks. He waves his arms in the air, brandishing the sword.

Even on top of the pile, he’s only at the level of the creature’s chest. He had thought that would be the case when he’d surveyed the pile from the ground. Rex stomps over, placing himself right where Tony wanted him, directly in front of the pile, the catapult on his left.

Tony stares at the catapult. The lever is in the air and the basket is on the ground. There’s a metal club in it and a few rocks, some sand and dirt. The club looks heavy. He prays it’s enough, takes a deep breath, sticks the blade back in his mouth and leaps.

He hits the top of the lever and pushes off, it gives some, but the objects in the basket are enough to keep it steady for just a moment, allowing it to be an effective launch point. He hits the back of Rex’s left forearm hard, scrabbling for a hold on his skin. He ends up with his arms and legs wrapped around it, muscles aching. He wishes he had taken Cap’s strength training more seriously.

The cuff is higher on Hulk-guy’s arm, just below his shoulder. Tony starts wiggling upward, digging his feet in and pushing up. 

Rex’s shock wears off fast, he starts twisting his left arm around and grasping for Tony with the other. It makes Tony’s task even more difficult, but he holds on through the worst of the shaking, only trying to move forward when the creature’s motions subside.

With tremendous effort, he reaches the band. It’s not only his prize, but a more secure handhold as well. He grips it with one hand while feeling for the place where it was welded together with the other. It’s difficult, because this band isn’t smooth like Peter’s or his own. There are numerous gashes along it. Tony groans in frustration, hand fluttering back and forth over the thing. Rex is roaring now, and the audience is losing it. Tony wishes they would all shut up so he could focus on finding the weld. 

There’s something different about one of the bumps on the front side of his arm. Tony peeks his head around and sees it — a groove, unlike the uniform gashes around the band, the weld point, it must be. He shimmies his body around so that he’s on the front of the arm. It's a risk because the creature will be able to reach him easier. He’ll have to work fast.

Tony pries the blade from his lips and pushes the tip of it into the surface of the cuff, picking at the place where it was welded together. It should be the weakest point of the device, but it doesn’t give much. Tony starts hacking at the thing, sticking the blade into it with all the force he can muster, scraping up and down, sliding the blade under and pulling up. Cracks start to form along the weld-point. Tony sees a few sparks fly. That’s progress.

He doesn’t get to rejoice in it for long. Rex grabs him by the foot and the world flips upside down. Tony clenches his mouth shut, desperate to keep the translators in place. The creature dangles him in the air, shaking him back and forth, his ankle jerking in every direction mercilessly.

Rex lifts his arm high and brings it down in a swift snap. Tony feels a pop followed by sharp, blinding pain that renders his vision black once more. Before he can reorient himself, as the arena starts to creep back into color, he’s arcing across the sky. He lands in a heap on his side, his shoulder crunching painfully into the ground. 

The crowd is screaming. Rex’s footsteps are somehow louder, reverberating about the arena. Tony picks his head off the floor. His hands push his shoulders and upper-body off the ground next, then he gets to his feet — well, more like one foot. He holds the other a bit above the ground, hops on his good leg a few times for balance. 

Rex roars. For the first time, Tony meets his opponent’s eyes. Some emotion flashes across them. It’s not anger, more like fear. He’s putting on the show, trying to stay alive in this impossible situation, just like Tony is.

Tony finds himself hoping that the plan won’t kill him.

He limps, one foot dragging behind him as he goes, toward the pit of water in the center. He positions himself in front of it. 

Rex is closer now, and running fast — faster than Tony had seen him run so far. He’s desperate to finish this. Tony can relate.

He holds his breath. A quick calculation yields that he has approximately 8 seconds until impact. He focuses on the creature’s footsteps and starts counting. 

At three seconds, he can feel the warm breath, rapid exhales out of Rex’s mouth.

At two seconds, Rex reaches an arm forward, Tony flinches, but it’s not close enough to touch him yet.

At one second, Rex bellows. Tony holds his ground for a few milliseconds more and in one of them, he thinks that he sees realization dawn on the creature in front of him. Tony dives forward between the Rex's legs and roles, curling into a ball. He feels the tail brush against him as momentum carries Rex forward into the pool.

Tony looks up in time to see the body seizing in the water. Tony feels phantom contractions in his own muscles, some sort of sympathy effort. Rex goes still. Tony peers over the edge and then up at the crowd.

They erupt. He sees his face on a large screen hanging from the center of the ceiling. The floodlights start to flash and pulse. Tony cringes and shields his face from it all.

Part of the wall on the side of the arena opens and a guard jogs in. 

“He might still be alive,” Tony says, hoping that this guard might be like the one before who had understood some english. “He’s going to drown.” 

The guard doesn’t acknowledge that he spoke. He hauls Tony to his feet and then yanks one of his arms up in a display of victory. It invigorates the spectators anew. The whole arena seems to throb with energy. A myriad of images pass over the big screen. Tony thinks he sees something that resembles a sports bracket. The guards leers at him and starts to drag him out of the room.

The body’s still in the water. A few other guards have entered now. They surround the pit, immobile.

None of it feels real. He can’t believe the horror that he’s found himself in.

Not just himself. Himself and Peter.

He has no idea where Peter is. He has no idea if Peter’s alive.

Peter could have survived a battle like this. He’s more equipped for it then Tony is. A list of Peter’s abilities runs through Tony’s mind. He finds it comforting, thinking of all the tools that Peter had at his disposal to protect himself. 

He starts muttering them aloud. “Strength, super speed, durability, sticky, enhanced agility, Peter tingle.”

  
He repeats it over and over. There’s a subliminal message, too.  _ He’s okay, he’s okay, he has to be okay, he’s okay, he’s okay. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!
> 
> In the meantime, I'd love for you to check out my other works :)
> 
> Or find me on [tumblr!](https://peterparkrr.tumblr.com)


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